Well, the European Union sure remembers. Not too long after it admonished Microsoft for breaking its browser ballot box promises and threatened more fines, it announced a new probe into whether Microsoft was impeding competition.

The browser makers have suggested that Microsoft may be effectively banning third-party browsers from Windows 8 RT. Microsoft has denied this claim.

Surprisingly, typically pro-Apple, Inc. (AAPL) blogger John Gruber blasted the probe in a post on his blog Daring Fireball. The unlikely ally points out that Apple has a near identical model of differentiation and has received little EU scrutiny, writing:

So Apple can do it with iOS but Microsoft can’t with Windows RT, despite the fact that the iPad and iPhone are selling tens of millions of units per quarter and there is yet to ship a single Windows RT device?

With that said, even unlikely allies may be unable to save Microsoft as the EU salivates at the prospect of collect more billion-dollar fines from the beleagured operating system giant.

The whole notion that handing out fines to Microsoft in any way can finance the EU is stupid. Maybe you should spend a few moments and read about the EU to learn what it is. If you do you'll will for instance learn that the EU is 500+ million people thus any Microsoft payout do not matter other than to make Microsoft play fair.

What does any of that rant have to do with an easy billion dollar fine? Regardless of the population of the EU, a billion dollars going into the EU is a lot of money, especially with the eurozone in shambles right now. I see no other reason to so heavily embrace to the point of "massive probing" a set of complaints when windows 8 isn't even out the door.